.ltWomen's lib march on No 10 The Times, 3 February 1973 Carrying powerful torches specially imported from Denmark that they later found difficult to put out, three hundred women supporters of Mr William Hamilton's Anti-Discrimination Bill marched to the House of Commons last evening. They found that their only audience comprised workmen building the car park. MPs had gone home several hours before. So the women continued their torchlight march to Downing Street. There, three were allowed to take a letter past the police barricade to No 10. All the way they had chanted "Equality now'' and "We want the Bill'' and had been escorted by policemen who obviously felt that it was no time to impede women in an angry mood. The reason for the demonstration was the earlier debate in the House of Commons when Mr William Hamilton (Lab, Fife, West) failed for the second year to get a second reading for his Anti-Discrimination Bill. This would have set up a board to hear complaints about discrimination on the ground of sex. The strangers' gallery began to fill with women supporters during the debate on the previous private member's Bill about controlling heavy lorries. There was applause when Mr Hamilton, at 2.15 p.m., successfully moved the closure for that Bill and began on his own. He recalled how, exactly a year ago, his Bill was "slaughtered'' by a minority of "neolithic Tory MPs''. Mr Ronald Bell, one of the Bill's most vociferous opponents last year, sat opposite him, but showed no emotion. "The greatest area of pollution in this country is the discrimination against women from the nappy to the coffin'', Mr Hamilton said. Since last January an identical Bill had been taken up in the House of Lords by Lady Seear, and a select committee was now hearing evidence of discrimination, he added. This committee was collecting invaluable evidence of discrimination at all levels. "A mass lobby has been engaged in by all the women's organizations, and schoolgirls are campaigning on this issue for the first time.'' It would be an outrage and a social scandal if they were thwarted by a minority of MPs. Women were in no mood for another 12 months' delay. Mr Hamilton sat down to loud applause from the women in the strangers' gallery. Mr Mark Carlisle, Minister of State, Home Office, tried to pacify Mr Hamilton and the watching women by saying that the Government was in sympathy, and had done much in the fields of taxation and property law to eradicate discrimination. But he wondered how much value there would be in the Bill after the evidence before the Lords' select committee. It was all too much for one woman spectator, who shouted at him: "We can't wait'', and was led out of the gallery. A voice of dissent came, as it did a year ago, from Dame Patricia Hornsby -Smith (C, Chislehurst) who said the Bill was a hasty juggernaut whose anomalies would cause a great deal of trouble. At 4 pm, a spectator could be forgiven for claiming that pandemonium had broken out. Mr Hamilton tried to move that the question be put, so that a vote could be taken, but several Conservative MPs were on their feet shouting protests. The Speaker said that whatever his own views and sympathies were, he must refuse Mr Hamilton's request. Mr Hamilton and his supporters broke into angry shouts of "vote, vote''. The spectators joined in from the gallery, and demanded from an embarrassed Mr Prior, Leader of the House, an assurance that Government time would be given for a debate "I am prepared to see what arrangements can be come to which do not infringe on the strict ruling that the Government has with regard to private members' time, and to see if a decision can be reached'', he said. While this was happening a meeting was going on at Caxton Hall in the same room in which the Suffragettes used to meet. MPs went from the House to report on the proceedings there. They were received by the 500 women with anger and disappointment; they had hoped that Mr Hamilton would this time be successful. .lc .llWomen's Lib: British lib The Vote: WSPU Power: Helping hands The Law: Sex Discrimination Act .ll .lsWR09:WR09_03S WR07:WR07_01S WR10:WR10_05S WR01:WR01_06S .ls